My family has a tradition that I'd like to share. Every now and then my father would cut the power (without warning) and "declare an emergency." We never knew how long it would last and would take note of the things we needed and didn't have,etc. It turned a potentially horrible experiance into more of a fun, learning experiance. I still try to do this every year or so and I still discover things that we overlooked. My wife and I have even tried it for a week and found that we very easily adapt. This year I'm waiting for the first big snow storm...hee hee hee.... (No power, no phone, no mail....no contact.)
I've talked to the wife about doing that, she's not too keen on the idea. Another option, which we have done before, is to tape all light switches and unplug the non-essential stuff (i.e. leave the fridge & freezer plugged in so you don't have worry about those items). It's not the same as turning off the main, but it still gets the point across. Our first lesson learned was to keep the flashlights where the kids can't play with them. You know they will play with them until the batteries die, then you are down to using your bic lighter for light while you go to your battery stash to get more batteries. We also had a forced water outage that we used as a preparedness test. Our main line broke (after the meter, before it got into the house) so we shut the main off and had the plumber come out on a non-emergency call status. Saved us some money since we could wait for "normal" business hours for them to come out.
interesting, much like a fire drill, but better. I think I will bring this up at supper one night this week. Thanks
